


Of Life, Death and Liberty

by lost_spook



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Death, F/F, Pre-Series, Trope Bingo Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 12:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sapphire has run her prey to ground and now there’s only one thing left to do...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Life, Death and Liberty

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo square "indecent proposal" and 100 Element Prompt 24: Sapphire – road trip & learning to be loved.

Mathilde knew she was trapped. She was hiding in the hayloft, but her pursuer had followed her in here and was now carefully searching the half-empty stable below and was steadily moving nearer towards her. She closed her eyes and uttered a prayer under her breath – if such as she might still dare. She had tried to run, but the woman had followed. Sapphire, she had said she was called. It was not a proper name, Mathilde knew.

Even as she risked opening her eyes again, she saw Sapphire beside her. She wasn’t quite sure how she could have climbed up the ladder without her hearing the movement, but she had. She was not properly attired, either. She was wearing men’s clothes, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Last time she had been wearing an elaborate dress and Mathilde was hardly sure how she could have changed that while chasing after her. Either way, she thought, despite her fear, Sapphire was beautiful.

“Well?” Sapphire smiled at Mathilde, if a little sadly, but she did nothing worse, not yet.

Mathilde swallowed. “Please – leave me alone!”

“I don’t think you want to be alone,” said Sapphire. “In any case, I can’t leave – not until you do. I could wait down there if you would rather, of course, but isn’t this better?”

Mathilde stared back at her.

“You want to end this, don’t you?” Sapphire continued. “Yes?”

Mathilde breathed out at last, and nodded. Then she buried her face in her hands, ashamed of what she had done. She had not known; she had only been so very desperate not leave Maman alone, but what she agreed to – that she should never have done. She did not know who or what the figure she had seen had been. She feared now it was the devil himself. At the idea, she crossed herself instinctively. She had not understood the full horror of her choice until almost a day later, when she had heard how her neighbor’s son had died on the very hour, the same moment, as she had made her choice. That was when she had run away.

That strange being would return, she knew, and ask again. She shivered at the thought and what it would mean.

Sapphire took hold of her hands. “Mathilde, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and despite her predicament, she could not keep from looking at Sapphire, who was, after all, _very_ beautiful.

Sapphire gave her another smile, one that made her colour, as if Sapphire could overhear her admiring thoughts. “And what will you do?” she asked, softly.

“I don’t understand?”

“The creature,” said Sapphire. “You want to stop it now, I think?”

Mathilde raised her head. “Yes,” she said, more firmly. “When he – when whatever devil it is asks again, I shall –” She stopped there, her mind catching up with what she was saying, but she carried on. “I shall say no.”

“And then you will die,” said Sapphire. “These last forty-eight hours will unravel and time will once again be as it should be.”

She didn’t really understand Sapphire’s words. She only knew that it could not be right to live on, if the cost of every day was another life. How could she? She leant forward, trying to explain, not wanting Sapphire to think too ill of her. “It was only – it was only for Maman.” She had to halt again and blink back tears. There was no use in tears now, she told herself fiercely.

“Yes. I know,” said Sapphire. She kept hold of Mathilde’s hands. “It was still terribly wrong.”

Mathilde shivered again. She had not thought at all, that was how it had been. She had been caught between life and death when he – when it – came and she had been so afraid of what would happen to Maman if she left her. She had not even spoken; she had only thought that she would give even her soul to stay. She had not been able to respond in any other way.

“Don’t worry,” said Sapphire, as if she had spoken. “I’ll wait with you.” She touched Mathilde’s cheek.

“You don’t have to.”

Sapphire looked amused. “I do. I believe you, but I’m here to make sure that you make the right choice this time.”

“It will put things right?” Mathilde asked. “Can that be true? I shall die of the fever, as I –”

“As you always did. Yes.”

“And the boy – the boy –?”

“The boy will live.”

But Maman, alone, she thought sadly, still so very ill herself. It was hard.

“She has years left,” said Sapphire suddenly. “I can’t tell you more than that, but twenty-four years, perhaps twenty-five, if my calculations are correct.”

Somehow Mathilde didn’t question how Sapphire could know something like that. If the being was a devil, then perhaps Sapphire was its opposite – a saint, or an angel? “Thank you, madame.”

“Sapphire,” she said with a sudden wryly humorous glance around at their undignified surroundings and her unconventional clothing.

Mathilde nearly laughed.

“In that case,” said Sapphire, “we have two hours and forty-six minutes left.”

Mathilde wished she hadn’t said that. She did know what she had to do, but it wasn’t easy to hear, not like that.

“I could,” said Sapphire, suddenly sounding distant, “do more than merely wait with you.”

“I don’t understand,” Mathilde said, though she was suddenly sure she did and her breath caught in her throat.

Sapphire smiled at her again, as if she could see through Mathilde; as if all of those thoughts about her were no longer secret. “Don’t you? I think you do.”

“I –” Mathilde tried to steady herself and forced herself to look down, away from Sapphire. Sapphire, who was very near, who was still holding her hands. “That would be wrong, would it not?”

“You really think that, don’t you?” Sapphire sounded sad. “I suppose you do.” Then she leant in closer and everything that was not Sapphire faded away. “Is it worse than what you have already done? And soon none of this will ever have happened.”

Mathilde could not move away; she didn’t want to move away. She couldn’t answer the question, couldn’t remember what the question was. There was only Sapphire – Sapphire and herself. She was trembling again and her heart was beating furiously as if it didn’t agree at all that she was dead.

“Well?” Sapphire moved back, letting go of Mathilde.

Mathilde blinked. Her surroundings were suddenly very real again, the wooden boards beneath her, the prickling of the hay, the smell – all so very ordinary, so present. 

“Why do _you_ wish it?” she asked Sapphire. She could not imagine that there was any real reason that she should attract the other’s attention. She wasn’t sure whether to be afraid or not.

Sapphire looked back at her and Mathilde couldn’t read her expression, whether it was sad or amused, or neither, but she seemed inexplicably softer than she had before. “It may help,” she said, and then she took Mathilde’s hand again. “And I… I have… questions.”

Mathilde nodded. It seemed, just then, to make sense, though she didn’t know quite why. “But if none of this will have happened at all –”

“I shall remember,” said Sapphire, and kissed her cheek. It was an oddly dispassionate gesture.

Mathilde smiled for the first time, and dared to let herself stare at Sapphire without hiding the fact. She thought, as she had when she had first seen her, that Sapphire reminded her of pictures of saints and angels she had seen in the church, though she did not think that a saint or an angel would ask such a thing of her. But it was also true she had always been told that she knew very little. She kissed the hand that held hers: a quick, clumsy, human action. Graceless, she thought, when compared to Sapphire.

Sapphire brushed her fingers against her cheek. Her touch was cool against Mathilde’s hot cheeks, and she felt so aware suddenly of herself: the incongruity of one small grubby, tear-stained, living creature being approached by a being who, whatever she truly was, might as well be as unreal as a stained glass figure. Then Sapphire kissed her again, on the mouth this time, and all such thoughts were driven away. Sapphire was filling her mind. It was dizzying; unlike anything she had ever known or dreamed of. Perhaps she was trapped again and glad to be, or perhaps this, perhaps this was liberty.


End file.
